This is life now

 Reading: Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

Listening to: My husband coo at our wee baby son

Outside: The sky's unsure - rain or snow? It wants to do something.

Last time I wrote a post, I was still pregnant, heavy as a tank rolling through mud, and waddling my way past a jogger who, I have to admit, made me just the teeniest bit jealous. She was slim and seemed to run so easily, moved so painlessly. I know, I know, jealousy is a horrible way to feel, and yet there it was, just the same. I was still weeks away from my baby boy's impending arrival, and I was trying my best to just enjoy the pregnancy, which is very hard to do so close to that illusive Due Date. Any woman who has been pregnant will tell you, and if she says she enjoyed her entire pregnancy, she's lying through her damn teeth.

Lena and Baby Indiana, October 2020

I am completely on the other side of that now. I went into labour in the early hours of October 1st, 2020, and gave birth to a healthy baby boy at 6:20 am, very quickly and without complications. I was lucky. He was lucky. Giving birth - and yes, pregnancy and labour - during a pandemic presents its own set of challenges, and I was there to meet them, alone, mask, and all. I submitted to the pain as you must, and then, there he was: seven pounds and three ounces of pure miraculousness. 

New Year's Day, 2021

He is three months old now, and I have run again for the first time in more than a year, and believe me, I didn't feel it go easily at all. I weigh in at 9 stone 6, which is the heaviest I have ever been, minus pregnancy, and I could feel every pound as I took the same route around the neighbourhood that I used to take - and continue to take - for each oxygen-infusing walk. 

Me, Makeupless, First Post-Pregnancy Run - January 8th, 2021

I can't believe what life has thrown at us in the space of time between my last run and this one - a broken treadmill, a baby, an extra 20-odd pounds. A pandemic, home-schooling, masks and antibacterial gel and a healthy paranoia when touching door handles, mail and parcels fresh from the Amazon delivery van. Everything, it seems, is teeming with germs, with threat. I'm sure none of us imagined we'd be washing our hands every time we opened a letter or slid the blade of a pair of scissors down the tape over a box. I'm sure we never thought our children would be home for weeks or months at a time, asking us what the word "commemorate" means, because we have now become teachers for some hours each day, doing our best to make sure lunch doesn't boil over, stirring the soup with one hand, feeding a baby with the other, and lobbing letters through the open kitchen door, "c - o - m - m - e - m - o - r -a - t - e...." into a dining room turned classroom, at a child who may or may not want to entirely listen. 

A girl indulging in greats - December 17, 2020

I never expected my child would ever say that she misses school, the lunches, the lessons. Life has thrown at us the unimaginable, life handled clumsily through ill-fitting latex gloves. 

But, through the caffeine-fueled haze that is motherhood-teacherhood-pandemic-survival, there have been other wonderful things. The feeling of a clean diaper on your baby's bottom, the way he snuggles his head into the crook of your elbow as he falls asleep. Your girl pouncing through unexpected snow, making cairns out of ice. 

January 2, 2021 - Snow!

So I guess this is just to say, This Is Life Now. We must submit to it, open ourselves to it, let it become us. 

We are paranoid, worried, humming with exhaustion, washing our hands again and again and again. 

We are bleach-washing our groceries, feeding babies or children or ourselves, we're delivering food, we're texting our mom-in-laws to say We Appreciate Them. We're receiving gifts every day, in ways that are sometimes hard to see: chopping an apple for a snack that will taste sweet, sharing a laugh with our little girl as she does Mad-Libs for the first time, watching our son's eyes over the bottle, his baby gaze contemplative and content, sage-like. 

We are unsure, depressed, busy or bored, working or unable to work, lonely and missing others, missing from pub or kitchen tables, missing the point if we don't pay attention: we are holy. 

We are just one species on this big rock, surviving one day at a time, doing our best. We have already learned, are learning: it is no use to consider One Year Ago, that last time at TGI Friday's, under the neon lights in a bustling restaurant, the sound of frying crowding our ears - we had that once, and it seems so far away now it hurts. And we will have it again. Until then, This Is Life Now.  Drink your coffee. Zoom with your friends, text, connect. Exercise. Read. Rest.

In the meantime, embrace those you have, and cry for those you can't. Feel deeply, my dears. We relax, soften, and surrender. We will breathe through it one day at a time. Be priceless, lucky, and precious. Be holy. 

Miracles await.

Happy Friday, everyone.